


A Place I've been Before

by anitaupstairs



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-21 08:17:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1543976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anitaupstairs/pseuds/anitaupstairs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The life of the Winter Soldier and James Buchanan Barnes were connected across time by a skinny kid from Brooklyn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. March

_March 2012, Kabul, Afghanistan ___  
His name is Mohammed Fahim. He has a wife and four children, none of whom are with him today. He travels with two guards and a driver. He carries a small caliber weapon at all times. The winter soldier watches him walking down the crowded street. He’s glad for the scarf around his face, shading his eyes. Kabul is hot and loud. Children are screaming and running among a forest of legs, women, covered head to foot in burqas, some vibrant blue or green, float down the street like ghosts. Merchants lean out of open doors, shouting in arabic and broken english. He buys a dozen Kolche Ab-e-Dandaan, buttery cookies with pistachio and cardamon. He offers one to each of the men with him.  
  
It’s the Vice President’s sweet tooth that gets him. The winter soldier knows his routines. He always frequents the same bakery, always orders the same thing. So he bides him time, waits for the right conditions. And, as they always do, they come. Fahim wakes up and drinks a cup of Kahwah while he reads the paper. He puts stewed Alu-Bakhara and a pot of yogurt on the table for his daughters and kisses his wife goodbye.  
  
Fahim has a lunch meeting with an unnamed man who’s good at dodging cameras. The guards stay outside the restaurant. In the CIA brief, this will be pinpointed as the likely source of any foul play. As it happens, the shadowy man, when he is identified, is seen to have ties to a radical orthodox Israeli group. The seeds of chaos have been sewn. No one suspects the bakery. And when Fahim collapses on the street and is rushed to the hospital, his guards are wrong footed. They don’t notice the winter soldier slipping into the hospital room.  
  
The mission is over. He waits for extraction and looks out at Kabul spread out below him. There is noise in the hospital behind him.  
  
A doctor just ran down the hall, calling out to the nurses station. One of the two armed men that had been standing sentinel at a door farther up the corridor was running towards the doctor shouting in arabic. The other man was on the phone, hand cupped over the receiver. The winter soldier stood just outside the window, perched on the windowsill. He waited, hearing the doctor’s yelling, the erratic beeping of the heart monitor, the buzz of a defibrillator and finally silence. Somewhere farther in the hospital a woman began wailing.  
  
His face is unreadable, eyes covered by goggles, mouth set in a straight line. He slides across to the next ledge, springing the latch and ducking in through the window. A man is asleep on the bed. The skin of his arms has yellowed like old paper. Each of his knuckles stick out ridiculously from his skeletal hands. He is skin and bone. His sternum protruds, looking grotesque, from his narrow chest. His head looks massive, sharp cheekbones and hollowed eyes. Every contour of the bone is visible.

“Like a skull” The winter soldier's voice is hoarse and rough with disuse.

“Don’t worry Stevie” 

 

_A Skull, red and spewing hate._  
_Bodies, being rolled into a shallow grave. ___  
_A thin woman, her face gaunt, rests her slender fingers on his arm._  
Blond hair. __  
_“I don’t like skulls, they’re creepy.” ___

_March 1932, New York, United States of America ___

Bucky rapped on the front door, standing back as it swung open. Mrs. Rodgers stood in the doorway, leaning on the frame. Her blond hair was still in it’s rag curlers but she had a light blue apron tied over her floral dress. She looked pale and tired, twin spots of color high on her cheeks as if she'd exerted herself. She coughed lightly, her breath rattling in her chest.

“Hello there Mr. Barnes.” She smiled kindly, standing aside so he could come in.  
Bucky smiled back, “Hello Mrs. R, is Steve ready?”

“Steve might still be asleep, he got a bit of a chill.” Her voice followed him down the hall. Of course Steve had caught a bit of a chill. When Steve hasn’t got a bit of a chill, he’s got a touch of sun, or hay fever. Bucky pushed the door open without preamble. Steve was sprawled under a pile of blankets, one of his skinny arms hanging over the side of the bed. There were sketches pinned up to the wall behind him and an open notebook on the floor.

“Rodgers!” Bucky grabbed the sheets, yanking them off the bed and tossing Steve onto the floor. He struggled up, looking disheveled. He had a smear of charcoal on the bridge of his nose and his fingers were stained with ink.

“Bucky!" He grinned. 

"What time is it?” He ran a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. Bucky smirked,

“Time for you to get a watch.” Steve glared at him, disappearing into his closet and reappearing buttoning his shirt. Bucky ambled back into the hall, following the sound of Mrs. R’s singing into the kitchen.

“Drat. Bucky, be a dear and get me that box of sultanas.” She was leaning against the counter, a bowl of beaten eggs and a jug of milk beside her.

“You’re not making bread pudding by any chance, are you Mrs. R?” Bucky was eyeing up a loaf of bread, half sliced by the stove. She winked.

“I might be Mr. Barnes, as long as you and your partner in crime don’t eat it all.” She looked sternly at him 

“We’re growing boys Mr.R, we need to eat.” 

“If you’re not carful the only way you’ll grow is put. Get me those sultans and we’ll see, you’re the only tall one in the family.” Bucky was glad he was facing the cabinets so she wouldn’t see his sudden flush. He passed her the box. When he'd first met Steve he’s been only a few inches taller than Mrs. R, now he towered over her.

Steve stumbled down the hall.

“Leave Bucky alone mum.” She reached out to brush down his hair and Steve ducked under her arm.

“Where are you two off to today?” she asked, layering bread in a tin.

“Nowhere” Steve mumbled as Bucky said “A film.”  
Mrs. R blanched.

“Is that safe? You’re going into Manhattan?”  
Bucky grinned, “Not to worry Mrs. R, we’ll be fine.” She didn’t look convinced. Sometimes, when she worried about Steve, Bucky would be struck by a sharp pang of jealously. After all, who was there to worry about him. Steve squared his shoulders, 

“We’ll be fine mum, it’s just the subway not the front lines. ‘Sides, I’ve got Bucky with me.” She smiled at that, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Even so, as they set out but she didn’t try to stop them.

They walked in companionable silence. At the platform Bucky got two tickets and a cup of coffee. They passed the coffee back and forth waiting for the train. The Canarsie line took them to Union square. This was the bit Bucky hated. There were crowds everywhere, pushing out of the trains, onto the platforms, rushing from place to place. All that had to happen was for Steve to slip, or be pushed and he’d be trampled. It had almost happened once. A man had yelled out that someone took his wallet and Steve had been off, pelting into the crowd. Bucky had followed as best as he could, convinced he’d push through a group and see Steve laying on the floor. Steve had been fine, Bucky had rounded a corner to see Steve holding the wallet in one hand and a scruffy looking child in the other. He’d laughed off Bucky’s reprimands and sworn him to secrecy with Mrs. R. He wouldn’t let Bucky steer him, he didn’t like to be babied or pitied, so Bucky suffered in silence, following as closely as he could, glaring at anyone near them. If Steve noticed this, he said nothing.

He bustled them onto the Broadway line, ignoring Steve’s chuckling.

“James Barnes, mother hen. Would have thought?” Bucky punched him in the arm. Pushing him into a seat and taking the one next to him. Steve loved the subway, Bucky could see him itching to sketch. Sometimes Bucky wondered what would happen if he asked Steve to draw him, but he couldn’t. It felt like it would somehow violate the line in the sand he’d drawn. Steve was his friend, his very best friend, probably the best friend he’d ever had. He realized Steve had been talking to him and turned to listen.

”What’s the picture about?”  
Bucky grinned, “It’s about a terrible curse, and a mummy.” Steve’s eyes lit up and he was off talking about hieroglyphics and fixed perspective.

”They used eggs, can you believe that? Eggs and powdered rocks.”

”I’m not sure how much if focuses on the art. I think it’s more about the terrible curse.” Steve blushed, but kept smiling. 

Bucky nudged Steve, 

“huh?” Steve wrinkled his brow. “Look across from us,” Bucky gave a pointed look to the man sitting in the seat across from them. His legs stuck out into the middle of the car, and even sitting he was a head taller than the other men. 

“Spy, on the way to a secret base under the Empire State Building.” 

Steve nodded, “He had to flee from Russia in the dead of night, he fell in love with a politician’s daughter.” Before Bucky could add anything else, Steve's eyes lit up, "A princess, a Russian Princess, and now he's giving up his spying ways and trying to smuggle her into New York." 

Bucky snickered “Maybe he got her in the family way.” Steve grinned. The train lurched, slowing down. Bucky tensed, moving to the door while trying to keep an eye on Steve.

They got off at the 5th street station. Couples milled around the theater holding hands. A few brave ones snuck off for a kiss. They wandered in, Bucky pushing Steve in front of him, ignoring his grumbling. Steve grabbed his arm when the mummy came out of the coffin, and Bucky chuckled.

“Shut up.”

”Scaredy cat” Bucky whispered.

”Shhhh” Someone else hissed.

”I don’t like skulls, they’re creepy.”

”Don’t insult yourself Steve, you’re basically one too.” Bucky saw the glint of Steve’s teeth as he smiled, but he still punched him. Steve’s hand rested lightly on Bucky’s arm. He could feel it, impossibly heavy.


	2. Chapter 2

It burns, coming out of the freeze. It should feel cold, it is, after all, a freezer, but it actually feels hot all over, like a boiling shower. He’d scream but there was a rubber bit is in his mouth and so whatever noise he makes get lost. muffled.

He stares at the folder, not really seeing it. Who is he? His hands flip through the pictures, he scans the notes, but without seeing. Who is he? 

December 24th, 2013, New York, United States of America

The city slush has left a salty white rime on everything, on the taxi cabs, and the leather boots of uptown women, on the doormats and even on the people themselves. A man ducks out on to the street, the surprisingly bland doors of Wall Street closing behind him. His coat is wrapped around him, tight as can be. He looks behind him, sticking close to the buildings along Nassau St. It seems in this city, every third one is a Starbucks. And every window display is red, gold and green. Music spills out of doorways, and the city smells like gingerbread and eggnog, and urine, always faintly of urine. The looks again, checking behind him as he walks down to the subway.  
He clutches his briefcase to his chest as he boards the A train. He still clutches it, sitting awkwardly in one of the little orange bucket seats on the C train. He walks, first quickly, then more sedately through SoHo. He looks behind him one more time, waking up the steps of a bricked apartment.  
“Hi sweetie!” the woman who opens the doors says, she turns, “Allan, your fathers home.”  
“Daddy!” a little boy tackles the man's legs, hugging him close.  
“Hey, champ.” The man shrugged off his coat.  
“Daddy, I saw Santa sneaking into our living room.”  
“I know you did champ.” he patted Allan on the head, turning and walking into the living room. 

The man and his wife put Allan to bed, and, themselves, crept off to their room. The wife slipped under the covers, yawning. The man, holding Allan’s presents, headed towards the living room.  
He bent in front of the tree. From the wall, behind the tree, a shadow stood, growing and unfurling.  
It took only a moment, and the man hardly struggled as the winter solder injected him. It was enough cocaine to kill a horse.  
He dragged the man’s body back, slumping it out the couch, tying off a green silk tie he’d stolen earlier around the man’s upper arm. He finished off the table with the empty needle, and a half-finished scotch.  
The Winter Soldier sat next to the corpse. He reached across the table for the plate of gingerbread men left out by Allan. He bit the head off one, chewing.

December 24th 1934, New York, United States of America

“James Buchanan if you do not stop eating those gingerbread men, I will be incredibly _steamed_.”  
“ _Steamed,_ Stevie. Well, gee willikers, if you’ll be _steamed_ I’d just about lay off, shan’t I.” Bucky beheaded another gingerbread man. “I might just up and die with the vapors if you were to be _steamed_ at me." He paused, wrinkling an eyebrow. "Steamed with me?” He winked, "steamed for me?"  
Steve Rodgers glared up at his best friend. He was wearing two sweaters and covered in flour.  
“If these don’t turn out right it is all your fault because you keep distracting me.”  
He glared at Bucky, “I made a whole batch before you came home and they came out perfectly.”  
“They’re delicious.” Bucky agreed, folding an entire cookie into his mouth.  
“Now I know how annoying it must’ve been when we turned up and ate that whole pumpkin pie my mom had spent all day baking.”  
“Proud?” Bucky guessed, trying to grin. He missed Steve’s mom too. When Stevie had wanted to make her gingerbread, something for the holidays, Bucky had jumped at the idea. He’d do anything to make their tiny apartment less dour.  
Steve went back to kneading with a vengeance, trying to force the dough back into a ball. Bucky could see, his eyes, though downcast, were glassy.  
“Mum’s were never this,” Steve held up his hand, covered entirely in dough, “sticky.”  
“Here, let me help you.” Bucky grabbed Steve’s wrist, pulling his hand close, and wrapping his lips around one of the cookie dough covered fingers. He sucked, getting a mouth full of dough. Steve went still. Bucky spit out his finger. They were silent. Two tiny pink rosettes bloomed on Steve’s cheeks.  
Bucky coughed, “Too much molasses.” He turned, walking towards the counter to wipe his hand. He didn’t look at Steve.  
“Good thing you checked.” Steve paused, waiting politely.  
“Yea.” Bucky muttered.  
“Do you think I can just mix in more flour?” Steve still sounded oh so polite.  
“Not sure that’s how cooking works Steve-o.”  
“Well, then come help me you clod.”  
Bucky turned. Steve was grinning at him. Clearly his best friend was willing to forget that moment, Bucky’s slip. But he couldn’t. Couldn’t forget the pressure of Steve’s finger, resting on his tough, the slight edge of the nail and the brief, doe-eyed flicker of surprise in Steve’s eyes. 

_December 24th, 2013, New York, United States of America_

The Winter Soldier finished the gingerbread man. He blinked, hard, as if trying to clear his head, to remember. He ran a finger over his lips. They were chapped, the bottom one splitting a little.  
“Merry Christmas Stevie,” he whispered to no one in particular 


End file.
